TEHRAN - Iran’s outspoken president marked Quds Day with a public call for the entire population of Israel to be deported to Alaska or Canada.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech Israel should exist far away from the Islamic world, and called on Europe and the United States to use its foreign aid money to set up a new Israel in their own backyard.

Iran’s Fars News Agency said Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a crime, but added it should not be used as a pretext for Israeli persecutions of the Palestinians.

Fars said Quds Day rallies across Iran drew millions of participants. Al-Quds is a term used for Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holier cities. It is also the name given to an Iranian military branch said to be assisting insurgents in neighboring Iraq.